Whore
They say the hottest love ends cold
It's true
After all, if a relationship is only heat
the fire must go out eventually
And then the frostbite begins licking at your nerves, at your life
It starts from your heart, but it begins in your fingertips like icy tendrils
Biting and Numbing from the first place you touched him
It moves up your toes, then, to your legs
That's when you know you can't run from it, the cold, no more
It spreads and spreads until there is nothing it hasn't touched
Nothing except your face, your cheek, your lips
They burn still
Not with desire, no, but with smoke and ashes and dry salt
Your cheek still hurts from where flesh met flesh with a hard heart
and there's a little blood from where the wedding ring nearly took your eye
And there's a small, smoldering fire deep in your chest that has nothing to do with love
that hopes that your blood doesn't wash off that ring
That ring for that other woman
But then your lips burn, too
Not from a strike, but from a brush
A thumb that slid over crimson lipstick that you wore just for him
He said he liked it
But now that he's gone, you burn and it burns and you wish it were blood and not some makeup
Makeup didn't save you from the break up
But maybe that's your own fault
Shouldn't you have known it would end like this? Shouldn't you have known?
You wipe off the makeup, wipe it on your pants
But it doesn't come off
It smears down your face and red across your hands and it burns your numb skin
And with this smeared beauty marking you red, your clothes ripped, your cheek raw
You wonder if he's right